Former United States
President Bill Clinton will head a US delegation to East
Timor to take part in Independence celebrations. The
celebrations are a victory for democracy, for
humanitarianism, and above all the East Timorese. But this
Independence Day must also be a day of remembrance: Our own
New Zealand government’s policy of silence, nurtured
significantly in the 1990s by the then New Zealand Foreign
Minister Don McKinnon, placed trade above humanitarianism
while Indonesia slaughtered thousands in the 23 years of
occupation, since invading East Timor in 1975.

On May
20, East Timor will become the first new nation of the
millennium. Clinton, joined by his last ambassador to the
UN, Richard Holbrooke, is scheduled to congratulate East
Timorese on their hard-won victory and provide encouragement
for further social stability, infrastructure development,
industry and economic growth.

But western nations
ought to be reminded of their reluctance to interfere in
Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor on December 7 1975 and
the excesses of the 1990s, and for this apologies ought to
be forthcoming.

Indonesian dictator Suharto had been
given the green light to invade, only the day before, by the
then United States President Gerald Ford and US Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger. What followed was 23 years of a
US-Indonesian alliance that supported the oppression of East
Timorese. The US looked the other way when massacres were
orchestrated against unarmed citizens including New
Zealanders and Australian journalists. New Zealand too
embraced open and progressive trade with Indonesia and
maintained a policy of silence over atrocities in East
Timor. The United States supplied 90% of the weapons used
during the initial invasion and continued to provide Jakarta
[Indonesia’s capital] with billions of dollars in weaponry.

The result? More than 200,000 [one third of East
Timor’s population] were murdered. Evidence of this was
revealed within formerly classified documents released
recently by the United States National Security Archive.

New Zealand is not clean
on this issue. Former New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of Foreign Affairs Don McKinnon [Now Commonwealth
Secretary General] insisted that a “non-critical” policy was
observed regarding Indonesia and East Timor. McKinnon,
preoccupied with trade not humanitarian issues, refused to
add clout to the voice of a New Zealand family that had lost
loved ones during a massacre in Dili, East Timor’s capital.

New Zealander, Helen Todd's son Kamal Bamadhaj was
killed in the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, East Timor, when
Indonesian troops opened fire on protesters marching for
independence on November 12, 1991. The story of his death
was told in the documentary Punitive Damage, a collaboration
between his mother and filmmaker Annie Goldson. Helen Todd
lobbied McKinnon to apply pressure on Indonesia. She wanted
justice and conviction for those responsible to the massacre
and the death of her son. McKinnon was not moved. Trade was
the all important issue, not the death of Kamal Bamadhaj and
certainly not human rights.

When video footage and
photographs of a November 1991 massacre in Dili were
smuggled to the outside world by reporters who survived the
bloodbath, international support for East Timor's
independence grew dramatically. But McKinnon and his
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials did little
apart from attempt to steady unease.

Following the 1991 massacre, a
group formed called East Timor Action Network. It
successfully lobbied the US Congress to block some weapons
sales and military training to Jakarta. But New Zealand
continued to seduce Indonesia, establishing strong trade
ties, exploring sounder diplomatic alliances, training
Indonesian pilots and refusing to comment on Indonesia’s
occupation and continued policy of state-sanctioned murder
of East Timorese.

Even after East Timor's overwhelming
vote for independence on August 30 1999 [78.5 per cent of
East Timor's registered voters approved independence for the
region in a UN-backed referendum] when the Indonesian
military (TNI) and its militia proxies laid waste to the
territory, killing at least 2,000 and forcibly displacing
more than two-thirds of the population – New Zealand’s Don
McKinnon tried to damp down outrage.

The wave of
violence staggered the world. Eye witnesses reported bodies
piled high in Dili's police station cells, stacks of bodies
went up to the roof. The Sydney Morning Herald reported arms
and legs dripping blood.

At that very moment APEC,
the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation heads of governments
meetings were then being held in Auckland, New Zealand.
There two thirds of the world’s countries came together to
discuss globalisation, economic trade liberalisation. Bill
Clinton, the then Russian Federation Prime Minister and now
President Vladimir Putin, the Late Japanese Prime Minister
Keizo Obuchi, and Chinese President Jiang Zemin were all
there.

McKinnon insisted that APEC had gathered in
Auckland to discuss economic liberalisation not Indonesian
relations with East Timor. McKinnon, charged as host nation
with coordinating the meetings was determined to keep East
Timor off the agenda. But as the world’s leaders gathered,
McKinnon was out manoeuvred largely by pressure from ASEAN
nations determined to halt the killings in East Timor and
salvage ties and ease threats of economic sanctions against
the developing economy of Indonesia.

A “Crisis
Meeting” was demanded by the world’s heavyweights. McKinnon
was forced to organise a meeting in the Auckland Town Hall
adjacent to the APEC heads of governments meetings in the
Aotea Centre. Britain’s Foreign Minister Robin Cook was on
his way – expecting to take part in a meeting. McKinnon was
forced to comply. In a face-saving measure McKinnon chaired
the meeting. The tolling of Auckland City church bells on
the hour every hour throughout that Crisis Meeting was a
moving reminder to all the leaders who sat inside the
Auckland Town Hall that the world’s people were watching.

The results were kept secret.

On exiting from
the meeting, reporting for Scoop Media [see www.scoop.co.nz]
I asked US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright what was
the outcome of the meeting. She replied: “Chairman Don
McKinnon will expand on this later.” He never did. But we
found out from the international contingent’s spokespersons
that a wedge had been driven between the economically
obsessed ASEAN nations and the humanitarian concerns of the
western Pacific UN leaning nations. New Zealand remained
silent.

Clinton followed by cutting all military ties
with Indonesia and severed economic co-operation and aid
with Indonesia. Japan raised concerns about taking this
approach. Japan warned that the international community must
“consider the serious consequences” of withholding
International Monetary Fund aid to Indonesia. It said such
an action would have dire consequences for the security and
economic development of the Asia/Pacific region.

Japan at that time contributed $2 billion US in
humanitarian aid to Indonesia. That made up 60 percent of
the net aid contribution the country received.

Japanese Prime Minister Obuchi reiterated for
Indonesia to: “accept international calls for calm in East
Timor.” “To do so,” he said, “is not something which
Indonesia should be ashamed.” Mr Obuchi said the situation
in East Timor was “unacceptable”. That the responsibility of
restoring order lay with Indonesia: “If it cannot restore
order then we should again ask Indonesia to allow the
international community to restore order on its behalf.” But
again he warned: “If international pressure on Indonesia
causes the economic hardship onto Indonesia’s people, then
unknown consequences would develop.” Japan would only go as
far to say it would provide “logistic support to a United
Nations lead force in East Timor.”

China took the
strongest stance of the ASEAN nations with its President
Jiang Zemin stating: “That the will of the East Timorese
people should be honoured and that the International
community should now move to restore order in East Timor.”

McKinnon became insignificant, and remained silent.

The world leaders, gathered in Auckland for the APEC
leader’s summit meetings, waited for a statement from
Indonesian President B.J. Habibie on whether an
international peacekeeping force would be asked into East
Timor to help restore peace.

Press secretary to
Britain’s foreign minister Robin Cook, Kim Darroch, told me
in a telephone interview to Whitehall that Britain had
little information regarding which way President Habibie
would swing. Darroch said the British Government had agreed
to send one infantry company, consisting of around 150 to
200 soldiers, to back an international peacekeeping
contingent to East Timor should President Habibie request
assistance. Darroch said the British naval ship, HMS
Glasgow, was also close to reaching the waters off East
Timor. The ship had restocked in Singapore two days
previously and was heading to sea.

Meanwhile, back in
Auckland, New Zealand Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley, awaited
the Indonesian response. McKinnon continued to be silent.
Shipley’s press secretary, Simon King, said she would not
make any statements on the situation before receiving the
Indonesian statement and would not likely comment on what
stance New Zealand would take.

An important point was
this week raised by the spokesperson for East Timor Action
Network, John Miller. He issued a statement saying: "When
former President Clinton, joined by his last ambassador to
the UN, Richard Holbrooke, congratulates the East Timorese
people on their hard-won victory, we must remember that as
the most important supporter of Indonesia's illegal
occupation, the US, owes the new country an enormous moral
debt. We urge the Clinton delegation to acknowledge it."
Miller said: “Since September 1999 Washington has provided
significant assistance to East Timor's reconstruction, but
such aid does not begin to compensate the East Timorese
people for the suffering wrought by 24 years of US support
for Indonesian military occupation."

Of course recent history shows that New
Zealand, as did Australia and the US, contributed
significantly to a United Nations peace keeping force in
East Timor. Successful elections have been held. And on May
20 East Timor becomes this century’s first new nation. That
is a wonderful outcome for a country that has suffered and
endured much.

But it would be wrong for people to
forget the role that western nations - led by the United
States and bolstered by nations like New Zealand - played in
the invasion of 1975 and subsequent massacres like that and
the Santa Cruz Cemetery in 1991. The policy of silence that
New Zealand then supported, and the United States’ arming of
the Indonesian military, allowed in large part the continued
oppression of the people of East Timor. These are now
brighter days. Lest we forget.

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